Emergency Preparedness article Click for a pdf summary of the August 2006 SERGG Disaster Preparedness meeting in Louisina: August… August 6th, 2008
The Southeast Genetics Collaborative in partnership with SERGG, Inc. is actively developing a regional disaster preparedness plan in response to the profound impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the gulf coast states. A regional Emergency Preparedness Workshop was held in August 2006 (New Orleans, LA), and a framework from which SERGG will create a comprehensive disaster preparedness plan was established. Representatives from all 8 southeast region states, the Virgin Islands and Texas participated.Also contributing were representatives from metabolic formula companies, newborn screening programs, consumers, public health care providers, the National Coordinating Center (NCC), and the Emergency Preparedness Workgroup.
The members of this group bring prior experience in emergency preparedness work.Drs. Andersson and Thoene presented a plenary session at theAmerican College of Medical Genetics annual meeting in San Diego at the Public Health Genetics Special Interest Group Forum entitled: Genetic and Metabolic Health Care Delivery During and After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (March, 2006). Dr. Andersson was invited to present the Louisiana Disaster Response Experience at the NYMAC Workgroup #3 meeting (June 23, 2006, Baltimore, MD), and collaborations with Texas and NYMAC are planned to encourage interregional disaster planning (see Letters of Support). The SERGG Laboratory Quality Assurance Workgroup has contributed to the disaster plan by identifying laboratory excess capacity to allow continuity of operations for laboratories, and plans for additional cross-workgroup collaboration have been made.
The existing SERGG Emergency Preparedness Workgroup has created an emergency preparedness framework based on a preexisting organizational structure (Command and Control) which includes local, state and regional collaboration. The purpose for developing emergency preparedness plans is to protect two important assets of the organization:personnel (patients and health care workers), and data (medical/lab records, staff/patient contact information). This project will create a model plan which may be adopted by other regions.
